The Qur'an has a variety of statements supporting resistance against aggression. However it contains very strict admonitions against taking actions against innocent people; that is terrorism.
I'd be kinda leery of this one. It's long been known that ultrasound in liquids can lead to the formation of free radicals. I'd think that this could potentially lead to a variety of nasty side effects including DNA damage.
Sure you can do coding without a college degree, and make a good living. Quite a few people I know do that.
BUT if you want to be more than a code monkey writing simple procedural stuff for an insurance company, and do more interesting work that requires solving hard problems then that degree and more besides are going to be needed.
The guys at Google working on stuff like image search need everything they can get from at least a MS in CS or math. PhD preferred.
It is possible to self-teach to that level, but it is very very rare.
When I saw this article the first thing I thought is that people who eat organic food are often doing it in order to avoid pesticides.
About 25 years ago I actually had responsibility for running a farm that was being used for experimental studies in various applications of biotechnology, some of which involved what would today be called GMOs.
None of the products ever reached market as the company I worked for eventually to stop working in this area.
One area of study was into the area of natural pesticides. The idea is simply that plants under stress produce natural pesticides to discourage insect attack. The idea was to exploit and enhance these mechanisms in GMOs.
One of the things that I've always thought likely is that without artificial pesticides, these natural pesticides were likely to be present in higher quantities. It is also quite clear that synthetic pesticides are carefully tested and regulated, but natural ones are not.
So it's not clear to me at all that food grown today in organic farms is any less toxic that that grown by conventional methods.
I'd be interested in any real science based opinions on this idea (no it's chemical therefore it's poison nonsense please).
It's a reprise of what happened 50 years earlier when farms became mechanized. It is an inexorable inevitable trend that machines will replace humans in routine tasks.
The fact is that manufacturing as an economic sector in the US is doing fine. To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of demise are much exaggerated.
The US is easily the world's most productive manufacturing nation in terms of output value per hour, and also has the largest manufacturing economy in the world.
As the article implied it's a matter of intent. You and your smart phone aren't going around with the intent of collecting information in furtherance of some purpose you will gain something from. You have a technological device that makes a connection boom done.
The patent troll in this case is doing this with the intent of collecting information in order to further a court case.
Just because I leave my car unlocked with the key in the ignition doesn't give you the right to drive away in the car, nor does the fact I forgot to lock my front door give you the right to search my house.
I think Romney/Ryan is a ticket better than anything they have fielded since Reagan was President.
And if Obama wins it will be a re-election of a President with the highest unemployment rate since FDR.
It seems to me Republicans have two big issues - demographics; that is Caucasian people are a decreasing percentage of voters, and they have a social platform that is becoming increasingly unpopular with women. You can't win with so much of the electorate unhappy with your policies.
German highways are safer not only because of driver tests but because of more strict laws, stringent enforcement of the laws and far more exacting inspection of the condition of the automobiles.
Enforcement is done using concealed cameras, so your chance of escaping detection is much lower.
Chile is a nice sane modern country. For example it is the only Latin American member of the OECD. The last time I was there they had put in a new subway system - very nice indeed. Much less crime than Brazil. Strong currency too.
The reliable infrastructure is ok except when they are having an earthquake. The one in 1960 was a real beeeeotch for sure. 9.5 Mw. My wife was actually there when it happened. The tsunami from it was still 10m high and killed 142 people in Japan.
I think they are mostly recovered from the last big one a couple of years ago. Only 8.8 or so.
The scenery is magnificent. Coming into Santiago from the north on a overnight flight you get to see the sun on the slopes of Aconcagua (highest mountain outside Asia) and the rest of the Andean cordillera.
For example defense sector spending has contracted by 4% over the past year.
Your comment about DOD contracting increasing during a recession is unbelievably dense. During this period we have been running multiple wars. Duh. The previous administration came up with the wonderful idea of running these off-budget as well.
Overall public sector employment has actually gone down considerably since the start of the recession. Enough so that it is a significant reason that the unemployment levels have remained over 8%.
You also double count some segments. For example the 7% number includes state and local employees, yet you add it in, again.
Inclusion of part time employees as full time employees is disingenuous at best. For example in my particular neck of the woods municipalities employee some financial specialties part time. These people work multiple part time positions across several municipalities; often as many as 5. Your method would count the same person as 5 employees.
Finally you might want to consider that the population of the United States is currently about 315 million. So even if the actual number of government employees is 40 million, which it isn't, you still fall well short of your claims.
As far as tax cuts you are full of crap.
Right now the Federal Revenues are 14.8 % of GDP. There has been ONLY one year since 1950 when the levels have been this low. The FACT of the matter is that we are engaged in multiple military misadventures around the world AND we are in the most severe recession in modern history (thank you for these lingering gifts, Mr Bush). Cut out the military adventures, increase the tax rates to something more typical and all of a sudden things begin to look a lot more reasonable.
Damn it 12 years ago we had a government that was taking in as much as it was spending.
What is the difference between then and now? Tax cuts and wars. Since when the fuck do you cut taxes in war time?
Tax cuts are the PRIMARY reason for our current budget issues.
You really lose all credibility when you rant about some point and then try to justify the rant with bad math.
And then you accuse people who do disagree with as having poor math skills.
Well 1 in 7 people DON'T work for the government. It's 7% of people who work for the government. I hope you understand the difference.
And guess what - it was the SAME percentage as it was in the 1970's. Government employment hasn't grown. Yes there have been minor fluctuations. But it's flat flat flat since the 1970's.
So what has happened to drive the debt up?
Try TAX CUTS. Starting with Reagan. Spending in the US has not increased significantly as a percentage of GDP. What has happened is tax collection has gone done as a percentage of GDP. Right now it's less than any time since Truman was in office. In theory it was supposed to lead to increased revenues for government. Well guess what - GHW Bush called it voodoo economics. He was right. There is NO evidence that this idea has led to increased revenues. Revenues did go up, but at the same rate you would expect from economic and population growth. A math literate would realize this, but apparently conservative economists are more tied to their world views than they are to using math to validate their ideas.
Ronald Reagan ALSO made a large increase to the payroll withholding tax in order to finance benefits for the boomer generation. Something I happen to have been paying for 30 years.
Unfortunately Ronnie and Congress turned around and spent that on defense and tax cuts. And left IOUs in our stockings. Which are now coming due. So see your idea of immediate funding doesn't work. Governments screw that up so easily it's pathetic.
Personally since I have some investing acumen I'd have been better off without SS. The extra invested money would be worth a lot more than my current expected SS benefit. But I realize not everybody is in that position.
Now it's kind of instructive to see who the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts and defense spending were. I think a lot of people can guess. It certainly wasn't the boomer middle class which is starting to retire right now. Guess also who is screaming for even more tax cuts now.
FACT: Boomers paid all sorts of debts, including the financing of their parent's retirements, the Marshal Plan and the Cold War, which was a big pill to swallow. What the hell kind of privileged class do you think you are that you feel you can escape your responsibilities to the society you live in?
The original reason for corporate personhood is to give corporations standing in court so they can be sued.
So yes you can sue them.
Corporate personhood isn't actually such a bad idea except that certain Supreme Court decisions seem to be taking it all the way to corporate citizenship, which IS a very bad idea.
Torrenting does nothing to solve the problems with the current business models used in the music industry. All it does is encourage RIAA companies to try to get legislation, court actions or treaties that are highly inimical to end users.
The best thing you can do is buy music from organizations that provide music in forms that you like.
I happen to like CDs because they provide a DRM free archival storage media that I will be able to pass on in my estate or resell if the mood suits. CD's are also easily rippable for use in whatever portable device you have.
I also like legal DRM free online sources that preserve right of first sale and avoid BS licenses like the ones iTune claims.
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You've been reading too many nutjob blogs.
The Qur'an has a variety of statements supporting resistance against aggression. However it contains very strict admonitions against taking actions against innocent people; that is terrorism.
http://kurzman.unc.edu/islamic-statements-against-terrorism/
I'd be kinda leery of this one. It's long been known that ultrasound in liquids can lead to the formation of free radicals. I'd think that this could potentially lead to a variety of nasty side effects including DNA damage.
Sure you can do coding without a college degree, and make a good living. Quite a few people I know do that.
BUT if you want to be more than a code monkey writing simple procedural stuff for an insurance company, and do more interesting work that requires solving hard problems then that degree and more besides are going to be needed.
The guys at Google working on stuff like image search need everything they can get from at least a MS in CS or math. PhD preferred.
It is possible to self-teach to that level, but it is very very rare.
I moved from GoDaddy to Namecheap this summer, SOPA was the last straw for me. GoDaddy made it an unpleasant process. Good riddance.
I don't condone the Anonymous action though. There are lots of good people who use GoDaddy.
GoDaddy really are bottom feeders though. Anyone using them should go home and re-think their lives.
When I saw this article the first thing I thought is that people who eat organic food are often doing it in order to avoid pesticides.
About 25 years ago I actually had responsibility for running a farm that was being used for experimental studies in various applications of biotechnology, some of which involved what would today be called GMOs.
None of the products ever reached market as the company I worked for eventually to stop working in this area.
One area of study was into the area of natural pesticides. The idea is simply that plants under stress produce natural pesticides to discourage insect attack. The idea was to exploit and enhance these mechanisms in GMOs.
One of the things that I've always thought likely is that without artificial pesticides, these natural pesticides were likely to be present in higher quantities. It is also quite clear that synthetic pesticides are carefully tested and regulated, but natural ones are not.
So it's not clear to me at all that food grown today in organic farms is any less toxic that that grown by conventional methods.
I'd be interested in any real science based opinions on this idea (no it's chemical therefore it's poison nonsense please).
Manufacturing in general is losing jobs. Not only in the US but in third world countries like China and Mexico because of efficiency increases.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aRI4bAft7Xw4
It's a reprise of what happened 50 years earlier when farms became mechanized. It is an inexorable inevitable trend that machines will replace humans in routine tasks.
The fact is that manufacturing as an economic sector in the US is doing fine. To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of demise are much exaggerated.
The US is easily the world's most productive manufacturing nation in terms of output value per hour, and also has the largest manufacturing economy in the world.
http://www.nam.org/Statistics-And-Data/Facts-About-Manufacturing/Landing.aspx
http://www.seeitmarket.com/u-s-still-in-the-business-of-making-things/
http://business.time.com/2011/03/10/can-china-compete-with-american-manufacturing/
Poppycock.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/381945/20120907/bing-google-microsoft-pepsi-challenge.htm
As the article implied it's a matter of intent. You and your smart phone aren't going around with the intent of collecting information in furtherance of some purpose you will gain something from. You have a technological device that makes a connection boom done.
The patent troll in this case is doing this with the intent of collecting information in order to further a court case.
BIG DIFFERENCE.
This judge is in contempt of common sense.
Just because I leave my car unlocked with the key in the ignition doesn't give you the right to drive away in the car, nor does the fact I forgot to lock my front door give you the right to search my house.
> Romney has been skyrocketing in terms of female popularity lately...
Baloney. One ABC poll showing a post-convention bounce isn't significant. This is a clear long-term historical trend over multiple election cycles.
It's also becoming important in young voters.
Republicans are obviously going to have to change their approach to stay competitive in national elections. The demographics aren't working for them.
Here's the facts, Jack
http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/voters/gender_gap.php
Relative to what?
I think Romney/Ryan is a ticket better than anything they have fielded since Reagan was President.
And if Obama wins it will be a re-election of a President with the highest unemployment rate since FDR.
It seems to me Republicans have two big issues - demographics; that is Caucasian people are a decreasing percentage of voters, and they have a social platform that is becoming increasingly unpopular with women. You can't win with so much of the electorate unhappy with your policies.
German highways are safer not only because of driver tests but because of more strict laws, stringent enforcement of the laws and far more exacting inspection of the condition of the automobiles.
Enforcement is done using concealed cameras, so your chance of escaping detection is much lower.
They are very good on literacy in Hangul (highest rate in the world) but apparently Engrish is still causing problems.
Chile is a nice sane modern country. For example it is the only Latin American member of the OECD. The last time I was there they had put in a new subway system - very nice indeed. Much less crime than Brazil. Strong currency too.
The reliable infrastructure is ok except when they are having an earthquake. The one in 1960 was a real beeeeotch for sure. 9.5 Mw. My wife was actually there when it happened. The tsunami from it was still 10m high and killed 142 people in Japan.
I think they are mostly recovered from the last big one a couple of years ago. Only 8.8 or so.
The scenery is magnificent. Coming into Santiago from the north on a overnight flight you get to see the sun on the slopes of Aconcagua (highest mountain outside Asia) and the rest of the Andean cordillera.
You must be thinking about a different planet.
I take math very seriously.
Nah.
We are in a recession AND we are pissing out countless billions in useless wars AND we had a tax cut during war time.
It is absolutely RETARDED to cut taxes at the same time you are starting two wars.
Cutting social spending is NOT the fix to the above issues.
Your numbers are still wrong.
For example defense sector spending has contracted by 4% over the past year.
Your comment about DOD contracting increasing during a recession is unbelievably dense. During this period we have been running multiple wars. Duh. The previous administration came up with the wonderful idea of running these off-budget as well.
Overall public sector employment has actually gone down considerably since the start of the recession. Enough so that it is a significant reason that the unemployment levels have remained over 8%.
You also double count some segments. For example the 7% number includes state and local employees, yet you add it in, again.
Inclusion of part time employees as full time employees is disingenuous at best. For example in my particular neck of the woods municipalities employee some financial specialties part time. These people work multiple part time positions across several municipalities; often as many as 5. Your method would count the same person as 5 employees.
Finally you might want to consider that the population of the United States is currently about 315 million. So even if the actual number of government employees is 40 million, which it isn't, you still fall well short of your claims.
As far as tax cuts you are full of crap.
Right now the Federal Revenues are 14.8 % of GDP. There has been ONLY one year since 1950 when the levels have been this low. The FACT of the matter is that we are engaged in multiple military misadventures around the world AND we are in the most severe recession in modern history (thank you for these lingering gifts, Mr Bush). Cut out the military adventures, increase the tax rates to something more typical and all of a sudden things begin to look a lot more reasonable.
Damn it 12 years ago we had a government that was taking in as much as it was spending.
What is the difference between then and now? Tax cuts and wars. Since when the fuck do you cut taxes in war time?
Tax cuts are the PRIMARY reason for our current budget issues.
You really lose all credibility when you rant about some point and then try to justify the rant with bad math.
And then you accuse people who do disagree with as having poor math skills.
Well 1 in 7 people DON'T work for the government. It's 7% of people who work for the government. I hope you understand the difference.
And guess what - it was the SAME percentage as it was in the 1970's. Government employment hasn't grown. Yes there have been minor fluctuations. But it's flat flat flat since the 1970's.
So what has happened to drive the debt up?
Try TAX CUTS. Starting with Reagan. Spending in the US has not increased significantly as a percentage of GDP. What has happened is tax collection has gone done as a percentage of GDP. Right now it's less than any time since Truman was in office. In theory it was supposed to lead to increased revenues for government. Well guess what - GHW Bush called it voodoo economics. He was right. There is NO evidence that this idea has led to increased revenues. Revenues did go up, but at the same rate you would expect from economic and population growth. A math literate would realize this, but apparently conservative economists are more tied to their world views than they are to using math to validate their ideas.
Ronald Reagan ALSO made a large increase to the payroll withholding tax in order to finance benefits for the boomer generation. Something I happen to have been paying for 30 years.
Unfortunately Ronnie and Congress turned around and spent that on defense and tax cuts. And left IOUs in our stockings. Which are now coming due. So see your idea of immediate funding doesn't work. Governments screw that up so easily it's pathetic.
Personally since I have some investing acumen I'd have been better off without SS. The extra invested money would be worth a lot more than my current expected SS benefit. But I realize not everybody is in that position.
Now it's kind of instructive to see who the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts and defense spending were. I think a lot of people can guess. It certainly wasn't the boomer middle class which is starting to retire right now. Guess also who is screaming for even more tax cuts now.
FACT: Boomers paid all sorts of debts, including the financing of their parent's retirements, the Marshal Plan and the Cold War, which was a big pill to swallow. What the hell kind of privileged class do you think you are that you feel you can escape your responsibilities to the society you live in?
And do you know why this happens?
Hint:
Stupid, ignorant, apathetic voters.
People get the government they deserve. Always.
- Joseph de Maistre
Well maybe next time people will be smarter.
Nah.
It's a basic precept of logic, you insensitive non-scientist.
The original reason for corporate personhood is to give corporations standing in court so they can be sued.
So yes you can sue them.
Corporate personhood isn't actually such a bad idea except that certain Supreme Court decisions seem to be taking it all the way to corporate citizenship, which IS a very bad idea.
Don't pirate music. Please.
Torrenting does nothing to solve the problems with the current business models used in the music industry. All it does is encourage RIAA companies to try to get legislation, court actions or treaties that are highly inimical to end users.
The best thing you can do is buy music from organizations that provide music in forms that you like.
I happen to like CDs because they provide a DRM free archival storage media that I will be able to pass on in my estate or resell if the mood suits. CD's are also easily rippable for use in whatever portable device you have.
I also like legal DRM free online sources that preserve right of first sale and avoid BS licenses like the ones iTune claims.
Creative commons licenses are cool too.
Use SHA-1 instead of CRC.
So first it's faster than light neutrinos and now solar influence on radioactive decay.
Sorry but I don't need this on Slashdot. Fox News has all the trash science I'll ever need.